The point of the McCanns' exercise...

It is extremely rare for me to post at the weekend. When I do, the traffic is negligible and I can't remember when anyone commented about a weekend posting, especially one posted on a Saturday. But, following a conversation with a Guardian colleague last week, I decided on a little experiment.

We were talking about the the remarkable response to any story about Madeleine McCann's disappearance on the Guardian's website, and most especially any blog commentary. I had just logged more than 100 comments to my posting headlined McCanns' misery goes on amid newspaper coverage exhibiting a casual cruelty. He argued that the McCann case had become a sort blogging Viagra. You could put anything up, no matter how inconsequential, and it would attract comments.

But, I countered, almost all of the people who read this blog are connected with journalism. Unlike the public, where there is a continuing obsession with the case, they are much less likely to be interested.

That was the reasoning behind the was-it-the-tapas-seven-or -tapas-nine? posting immediately below, Another flaw in the McCanns' coverage. And it has proved my colleague correct. As I write, there have been 34 comments for a piece of nonsense posted during a period when, on all previous occasions, there has been no commenters' response whatsoever.

Of course, I did couch the posting in such terms that it was bound to elicit some personal criticism. But the size of the post bag, so to speak, is out of all proportion to the supposed error. It is further proof that the McCanns' story is different from any other.

Note that only two commenters troubled to respond to the Janice Turner posting, which is a full frontal attack on the state of British journalism and deserving of further discussion. (It was also about a new news story). Note also that no-one responded to the red-rag-to-a-bull posting in which I praised Simon Heffer. Instead, a tiny matter of no consequence whatsoever about the McCanns got all the attention.

One commenter, andrewwiseman, wrote: "Oh do just SHUT UP about the poor bloody Mccanns." I nodded in sympathy with that while also realising that he had taken the trouble to write it. Why bother?

There were also some extremely offensive comments about the McCanns, which I'm sure the moderators will delete (as they had to previously). Again, why should journalists be so outraged by people at the centre of a terrible tragedy?

What strikes me about this saga is that journalists, like so many members of the public, have lost their heads over the McCanns. It is often said that journalists are infected with cynicism. Point proved, I think.